Ummm...Can we say drama? :-( I suppose I should give you some back log before I get to the real story. For The last few weeks I've been told by my employer that I was not meeting employee policy with regards to my hair length. And, even though I'm only a temporary summer employee, that those standards still apply to me. Unfortunately, for those of you who are not aware (if there are any of you out there), I am not living completely full-time yet. Furthermore, because the job I have this summer was procured through contacts at my school (which I have been attending as a boy), I have been working this summer under male pretenses (unsavory as that may be). Now, I admit that I have basically ignored their requests in the past, hoping that I could get by without causing too much trouble and that worked more or less for the last 8 weeks. However, all of that finally came to a head today. When I met with my research advisor this morning, he informed me that although my work had been exemplary so far, he had been advised by his superiors that if I could not meet employee policies, my services would no longer be needed. And also, because our meeting had been rescheduled from last week to this morning, I was informed that my deadline to comply with these requirements would be by the following day. Needless to say, I was slightly shocked. So this basically left me with a few options:
#1. Reveal my transgender nature to my employer
#2. Ignore my employers request or
#3. Cut my hair
Well, the difficult thing is that I am not 100% ready to be outed (at school or otherwise) so #1 was not the greatest option (although it was the most appealing). And, because my school is rather intimately connected with my current employer, if I were to reveal myself, I could be assured of most of the important people at my school finding out via the old rumor mill (a very terrifying thought). This is not to say that I won't "come out" as it were, at school, I just want to do it in my own time and fashion. So that pretty much made that point moot. So on to option #2. I could certainly ignore my employer, and obviously it worked in the past, but this wasn't the greatest option either. First of all, I pride myself on being an excellent employee (hey, I don't have "employee of the month" plaques littering my walls because of my impeccable fashion sense :-P) so to risk being fired by the "company" I work for is almost out of the question. And, of course, there is always the immediate first reaction to something like this which would have been to tell my employer where they could stick my job, but that wouldn't exactly work. Unfortunately, here in the real world, ts girls such as myself have these monthly things called bills, and with a few weeks of work left before school starts, if I were to quit now, I'd be burning between 2 and 3 grand (which would mean bye bye to my fast car and more importantly to my transitioning finances for most of the rest of the year). So, where did that leave me? Option #3. Now I know this seems absurd to most girls out there reading this, but sometimes you just have to realize where you're at. Luckily, calmer thoughts prevailed for me and I considered several different things. I need money to pay my bills. I need to keep my job to get money. Although, it is incredibly painful to lose, hair grows back. In the greater scheme of things, making more money will move me along towards transitioning much faster (money = mones + hair removal + surgery + clothes...), and finally I decided to face the truth that I know I've been avoiding all summer. I'm not ready to go full-time this fall when school starts again. There, I said it. Painful as that is to face, I know that when I do go full-time, I'm going to want that transition to be as smooth and effortless as possible. Unfortunately, I just haven't quite reached that point yet. So, having finished my meeting, I left work (making my own hours being just another perk) and went to the hair salon. Now I don't work for the military or anything like that so we aren't talking a buzz cut here, but I swear it felt that way as I watched a few months of hard work falling on the tiled floor around my feet. The woman with the scissors did a wonderful job keeping it as long as possible, but I could hardly glance in the mirror before I paid quickly and left. I cried all the way home. I'm still cringing as I look in the mirror, but I know this is just one small roadblock I'm overcoming. I actually feel a little bad complaining, when I think about all the terrible things other ts girls before me have had to deal with on their way to becoming their true selves. If this is the worst I get, then I'll know to count myself lucky. So what was the final damage? Between 2 and 3.5 inches, or roughly 6 months of growing it back out. Anyways, I don't know if I can bear going a few months while my hair grows back out without adding new pictures so I may put some up later today just to get it over with. Try to be kind :-/